Take Your Chances

Only two sessions into our monthly event series in NYC, already Zen’tinis is catching on nationwide. We’ve just vetted our first request for an event in Miami and I’m thrilled to announce a special Zen’tinis will be hosted on April 26th at Books & Books, the iconoclastic arbiter of insight and intelligence in Miami and the Hamptons! Check us out 4-6PM that Friday night at the Coral Gables location www.zentinismiami.eventbrite.com

Sitting with the experience of creating something no one thinks will work and having it be successful, I’m really moved to reflect on many times I’ve flown in the face of reason to try something that challenges conventional wisdom, and to encourage others around me to be the same. Founder of FedEx, Fred Smith, got a “C” on his university paper explaining the idea behind overnight delivery. The Beatles were initially denied a recording contract by many record labels for having a sound that was “on the way out”. Debbie Fields was told by friends and family that a cookie store was a dumb idea.

As obsessed as our culture is with success, with happiness, and with perfection, any lover of greatness in any form knows it isn’t the end of the story that teaches us, it’s the beginning and the middle. We find the meaning, the instruction, in how achieving greatness requires confronting doubt, uncertainty and deep seated longing. How it means falling hard, only to rise again and again. Tell me, how have you failed? How have you gambled big and lost or won?

If you ever learned to walk, you had to fail. Learning to read, you had to fail. Learning to speak, you had to fail. Remembering to fail, oh, there seems to be some wisdom there. So let’s dive into it!

Gearing up for our next Zen’tinis in NYC on yes, no other than APRIL FOOLS DAY, I want to dedicate this coming gathering to taking our chances, to embracing failure as part and parcel of success, and to allowing ourselves to stand in the face of every sort of naysaying and pick ourselves up again and again and again. Check out www.zentinis.eventbrite.com and let us know if you’re coming – I’ll save you a seat.